


Zero Sum

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [94]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen, Guns, MSR, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-11
Updated: 2015-11-11
Packaged: 2018-05-01 02:07:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5188073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Zero Sum

_“Give me the gun.”_

On the drive over, his outrage could have fueled a jet engine. Scully had called on her way home from the hospital earlier that evening to say that the test results were inconclusive but not especially promising; the moment Mulder saw Skinner’s face on the surveillance camera footage, all of his concern for his partner transformed and coalesced into a fiery ball of anger in the center of his chest. 

Skinner.

How many times had they doubted his allegiances before? Each and every time, he had weaseled his way out from under the pall of that doubt, had said just the right things and made just the right conciliatory gestures to convince them of his innocence. But this was too much. Covering up a probable crime, destroying evidence, killing an officer in cold blood: Mulder would see him hanged for this. Not just because these actions themselves were illegal and wrong, but because they represented something far more insidious.

Skinner had been working for the shadow men all along. His oh so ardent declaration that it would be a mistake to try and make a deal with the cigarette man for Scully’s life? That was merely a ploy to ensure and probably even hasten Scully’s demise. And Mulder would never forgive him for that.

And yet, now, he’d gone and done it again. Just when Mulder had thought that he would never again fall victim to Skinner’s lies, the man had gone and said the _exact_ thing that would make Mulder question his guilt. He had invoked the one cause for which Mulder would forgive nearly anything.

Saving the life of Dana Katherine Scully.

He was still too angry, as he confiscated Skinner’s weapon, to trust the man completely. His voice was low but razor sharp when he spoke again.

“Let’s go.”

“Mulder, listen to me--”

“I’m done listening,” he spat. “Now you can come with me to ballistics or I can drag you there in cuffs. Which is it gonna be?”

But as they walked down to the car, Mulder thought carefully about the evidence at hand, turning each item over in his mind. The pry marks on Skinner’s desk drawer ( _He could have put them there himself to fake his innocence_ ), the fact that shooting a man point blank went against everything he knew about Skinner’s character ( _But who’s to say that I really know anything about him at all?_ ), the fact that cutting a deal with the cancer man would go a long way toward explaining how and why Skinner would have done these things ( _Or he’s just telling me that because he knows it’s something I would want to believe more than anything else_ ). He had an answer for everything, and yet… if, _if,_ Skinner was telling the truth, then Mulder could not jeopardize the possibility of whatever was to come of his deal with the devil. If his actions truly would save Scully’s life, Mulder would take the blame for everything himself before he stood in the way of that.

He put Skinner in his car and, under the guise of bagging the weapon as evidence and putting it in the trunk, he used one of the tungsten carbide bits in his car’s tool kit to quickly but effectively file the serial numbers off the grip and slide. Then he took a towel and wiped the whole gun down completely. Worst case scenario, Skinner was a filthy liar and a guilty sonofabitch, and Mulder would find another way to prove it. But at least now he had bought them both a little bit of time for him to figure that out for sure.


End file.
